Eurolanche

Aving Their Way

With equal measures of perseverance and improvisation, they overtook the Colorado Avalanche with a flurry of scoring.

A whole lot of Evgeni Malkin and James Neal helped, too.

Malkin stole the puck behind the net to create his own goal early in the third period, less than four minutes after setting up Brooks Orpik's tying score, and the Penguins scored the final five goals to rally for a 6-3 victory at Consol Energy Center on Tuesday night.

Neal, who has at least one goal in all eight Pittsburgh home games, scored his 12th of the season and the fourth of Pittsburgh's five in a row. Orpik, Malkin, Neal and Kris Letang all scored in a span of slightly more than nine minutes after Pittsburgh trailed 3-2 entering the third period.

Pittsburgh, which trailed 2-0 following goals by Jay McClement and Matt Duchene in the first period, won its fifth in a row at home and now is 8-2-1 in its last 11 overall.  

Neal, who trails NHL leader Phil Kessel of Boston by one goal after Kessel got his 13th of the season earlier in the night, figured in the first three of the Penguins' four goals in the third period. That was the perseverance.

Jordan Staal added his third goal in two games and Pascal Dupuis got Pittsburgh to within one goal at 3-2 by pushing the puck through a sprawling Joakim Lindstrom's legs and past Semyon Varlamov after the goalie appeared to have safely covered it up. That was the improvisation.

Malkin and Neal? They're simply examples of star power.

The outburst visibly discouraged the Avalanche, who came in with a 6-2-1 road record and were 9-2 with a tie in 12 games in Pittsburgh since 1995. But, despite the early leads, the Avalanche found themselves trailing by at least three goals for the fourth consecutive game, and no team can constantly overcome such a deficit on a regular basis.

This one certainly didn't start that way.

McClement, held out of the last two games despite being an alternate captain, put a rebound of brand- new captain Milan Hejduk past Marc-Andre Fleury at 14:51 of the first. Then Duchene made it 2-0 with one of Colorado's more dazzling goals of the season.

Paul Stastny beat Letang to the puck in the corner and fed it to the 20-year-old Duchene, who, with a slick bit of improvisation himself, passed the puck to himself through his legs while skating across the slot and beat Fleury with a backhander for his fifth goal in seven games.

With 7 goals overall, the 20-year-old Duchene has more goals than any NHL player younger than 21, and they don't get much trickier than this one.

Not that it mattered in the end.

The momentum shifted after Orpik scored his first goal in more than a year – or since Nov. 10, 2010 – with a slap shot from the left point that deflected off McClement and into the net to tie it at 1:11 of the third.

Malkin put the Penguins ahead to stay by stealing the puck from Kyle Quincey behind the net, then taking a giveback pass to beat Varlamov – previously 2-0 against Pittsburgh – with an inside-out move at 4:45.

Fleury made 24 saves and now is 7-0-1 in his last eight games, although this probably was his least effective game during that stretch. Pittsburgh is 6-0-2 against Western Conference teams.

-by Alan Robinson for NHL.com-